Tragedy and bloodshed visited two very different worlds this week, related only by their utter incomprehensibility, when many souls were lost to violence in Virginia and Baghdad. Last week we spent quite a bit of time contrasting how each was covered in the media: a gusher of emotion over the heroism, selflessness, and senseless loss among the victims of the shootings in Virginia, yet an astounding lack thereof for the hundreds killed in the daily carnage that is today's Iraq. No attention must be paid to flag-draped coffins arriving from our wars; there are few photos and honors for the lives of our soldiers or their families.

Yet even the Bush Administration managed to get in on the act, appearing at the Virginia Tech tragedy in just over 24 hours, beating their own record of four days in responding to Hurricane Katrina. (Perhaps because the university is so near the White House...?) Bush then said at the memorial, in perhaps his all time "greatest" urecognized-irony-laden moment: "Those whose live were taken did nothing to deserve their fate --- they were simpy in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Electronic voting machines, and the U.S. EAC, which is supposed to oversee them, are stilla disaster --- as we were reminded, yet again --- this time when ES&S iVotronic machines across America were revealed to have a vulnerability allowing an undetectable voter-flipping virus about which the EAC refuses to alert America. Also, Diebold Whistleblower Stephen Heller offers encouragement for the Honest American confronted with secret wrongdoing --- a must-read during these troubled times.

"Elections have consequences", and it showed most this week when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was called on the carpet before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a vain attempt to explain himself --- the attempt being in vain because there is no honest explanation for this perversion of justice.

Not to worry --- there still appears to be consequences for actual voter-fraudster Ann Coulter! But if any small good can come from this shameful period in our nation's history --- notably the U.S. Attorney scandal --- perhaps it will be the wide exposure and long-deserved death of the Republican myth of widespread 'voter fraud' --- which we've been covering for years on these pages (literally).

The issue at stake here has to do with what the White House was trying to do with the US attorneys. What the White House was trying to do in terms of, perhaps, creating a public image of voter fraud across this country that would entitle the White House to make it more difficult for people to vote. That seems to be to be a very large issue that needs to be discussed.

The Associated Press reports: "Two computer science professors said they found "significant gaps" in the state investigation into allegations electronic voting machines in Sarasota County failed to count about 18,000 votes in a contested congressional race decided by only 369 votes."

The Original 'Bomb Iran' Video
First Posted in April of 2006...Back When Bombing Iran Was Just a Gleam in John McCain's eye......And this one, unlike John McCain's version, is actually amusing. Even if both of them are creepy as hell...